Sen. Booker Has Very UnSpartacus-Like Response When Asked About Lt. Gov. Fairfax

During the confirmation process for then-Judge Brett Kavanaugh, Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) pulled out all the stops to make sure the American people knew where he stood on President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee and the sexual assault allegations against him.

Booker rose to the defense of Christine Blasey Ford, a research psychologist whose accusations that Kavanaugh sexually attacking her at a party when both were in high school led to Thursday’s hearings.

“Are you saying Dr. Ford’s effort to come forward to prepare for the very difficult testimony she gave today, to travel to Washington, D.C., and tell us about her experience, have all been part of an orchestrated political hit and are you basically calling her some kind of political operative,” Booker asked.

[…]

“Let’s just be clear: You have problems with the senators up here and how we conducted it, but you’re not saying in any way that she’s a political pawn or operative,” Booker said. “You have sympathy for her. She’s talking about a sexual assault. Is that correct?”

[…]

“Even if it’s in the final days before a vote, if someone has a credible allegation of experience that they’ve held for a long time, that person should be allowed to come forward,” Booker said. “In fact, she said it was her civic duty. You’re not questioning her sense of civic duty, are you?”

[…]

“She was not doing this for political efforts in 2012, when she talked to her therapist about this attack,” Booker said.

“She was not coordinating about this painful experience when she made revelations to her husband. She did not coordinate in 2013, ’16, 2017, before you were even nominated when he revealed that it was you with three different people that had sexually assaulted her. That wasn’t coordination.”

The admitted groper went out of his way while the cameras were rolling to show his gracious nature to Dr. Ford, at one point making sure Kavanaugh’s accuser had coffee.

Earlier that month, Booker proudly boasted that, “[T]his is the closest I’ll get to an ‘I am Spartacus’ moment” by releasing classified documents on Kavanaugh without permission, which is against Senate rules.

As it turns out, the documents had already been declassified, but that didn’t stop Booker from tooting his own horn, telling CNN‘s Anderson Cooper afterwards that, “I am breaking the rules. But I was raised and taught that an unjust law, you almost have an obligation to break it.”

But Booker’s immediate harsh judgment of Kavanaugh last fall stands in stark contrast to his approach now with Virginia’s Democratic Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax and the sexual assault allegations against him:

Senator Booker on the allegation against Lt. Gov Fairfax: “I think we should be focusing on what’s right now happening with the Governor. I know you guys are going to try to focus on a lot of things right now, but right now my focus is on again calling for the Gov. to step down.

Booker has also remained curiously silent about the domestic violence allegations against Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison (D). Maybe it’s because he’s also campaigned with Ellison – in Virginia. That same day, Ellison stumped for local Democratic candidates alongside … Justin Fairfax.

It’s a tangled web, but the one sure thing about all this is that you can bet money when a future round of sexual assault allegations are reported against a Republican, the New Jersey Senator will forget his newfound respect for the “wait and see” approach.

Because not only does Booker defiantly break Senate rules when it suits his political ambitions, but he also won’t hesitate to break his own.